The relationship of John to the synoptic gospels has been a recurring problem, not only for two centuries of modern critical scholarship, but for Christian theology and exegesis over a much longer period. To my knowledge a full history of this problem is yet to be written,1 although it might well be helpful in arriving at a solution, as well as illuminating the present situation. The purpose of this paper is not to treat the history or to resolve the problem, but to sketch out and assess its dimensions.

Eines dürfte wohl mit Sicherheit an der Geschichte der Kirche abzulesen sein: Eine intensive Beschäftigung mit dem, was der Apostel Paulus zu sagen hat, ist keine Arbeit im sog. Elfenbeinturm, keine esoterische und letztlich frustrierende Selbstbeschäftigungstheorie. Wo Paulus wirklich die Gelegenheit gegeben wurde, das Seine zu sagen, da kamen nicht nur die Wellen einer sogenannten akademischen Theologie in Bewegung, sondern auch immer wieder die der Kirche; und die Bewegung der Kirchengeschichte übertrug sich zuweilen sogar auf die Weltgeschichte. Und wenn ich als lutherischer Theologe auf Martin Luther verweisen darf, der ja schließlich als Professor der Exegese zu seiner reformatorischen Entdeckung kam und dies gerade dadurch, daß er sich auf den Römerbrief einließ,1 so ist es doch nur gerecht, wenn ich zugleich darauf aufmerksam mache, daß damals auch Männer der katholischen Reform ihre religiöse Kraft aus Paulus schöpften. Ich nenne hier nur den venezianischen Botschafter beim Wormser Reichstag 1521 und späteren päpstlichen Legaten beim Reichstag zu Regensburg 1541, Kardinal Contarini. Von ihm schreibt Hubert Jedin, daß sein Rechtfertigungserlebnis 1511 (!) mit Luthers Turmerlebnis vergleichbar war und daß er nach 1521 ‘aufgrund der Affinität seiner eigenen Innenentwicklung zu der Überzeugung’ gelangte, ‘daß der religiöse Quellpunkt der Heilslehre Luthers … urkatholisch war’.2 Auf dem Reichstag zu Regensburg einigten sich Katholiken und Protestanten über die Rechtfertigungslehre. Leider kam diese Einigung zu spät. Inzwischen waren andere Kontroverspunkte so dominant geworden, daß Differenzen darin eine Einigung im ‘articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae’ illusorisch machten.

Pour examiner les renseignements fournis par 2 Corinthiens sur le ministère de toute la communauté et les ministères de Paul, de ses collaborateurs, du groupe apostolique, les 742 emplois du Je, du Nous et du vous constituent une source de premier ordre. En choisissant cette approche, nous sortons du cadre trop étroit de l'étude de quelques-uns des vocables utilisés pour définir la diversité des ministères.1 Le problème de l'apostolicité se joue au cœur même d'une série de situations relationnelles: Je/vous, nous/vous et enfin Je/nous.

In a remote region in the Appalachian mountains a young college graduate applied for a teaching job. The school board's first question was, ‘Do you believe the earth is round or flat?’ The applicant knew that in the area opinion was sharply divided, but he was uncertain of the view of the school board. Desperate for a job, he replied, ‘I'll be frank with you, gentlemen, I can teach it either way.’

In the fifth year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I it was enacted by Parliament ‘that the Bishops of Hereford, Saint Davids, Asaph, Bangor and Llandaff… shall take such Order amongst themselves…, That the whole Bible…, with the Book of the Common Prayer…, as is now used within this Realm in English, to be truly and exactly translated into the British or WELSH tongue’. This authorization of a version of the Holy Scriptures by the English Parliament is unique, but that does not make the Welsh version the authorized version of the realm. What was endorsed by the 1563 Act was not the validity of the Welsh version as Scripture, but its legality despite being in Welsh. A generation earlier, the Act of Union of England and Wales had proscribed the use of Welsh in ‘any manner office or fees within this realm of England, Wales or other the Kings Dominion’. It so happened, however, that the 1563 Parliament had amongst its members a sufficient number who could be persuaded to put religious need before political expediency, having themselves but recently suffered for their religious convictions. Moreover, it was the good fortune of the Welsh people, in contrast with other Celtic groups, that they had in their midst, at this critical point in their history, men whose competence and scholarly equipment were equal to the task of producing a vernacular version. They were all alumni of the English Universities; and there they had come into contact with those movements which were radically transforming the intellectual, the religious and the political life of Western Europe. These were, of course, the rebirth of learning, the reformation of religion, the growth of national feeling with the accompanying emergence of vernacular literatures – movements whose irresistible onward surge was greatly accelerated by the printing press, an invention of the previous century. It was the dream of these Welshmen that this flood could be channelled to fructify the arid spiritual desert which they saw in their native land; and this they sought to achieve first and foremost by giving the Welsh people the Bible in printed form and in their own tongue.

On the 10th of July 1978 it was 25 years since I had defended my thesis before the Faculty of Theology of the University of Leiden.1 On the 2nd of October of that year the new edition of the Greek text of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, prepared over a number of years by a small group of people in the same faculty of the same university, came off the press.2 One will understand that the attainment of this milestone gave rise to introspection, retrospection and circumspection. What have I achieved in all those years, what should still be done, why is there still so much difference of opinion among scholars working in the field of the Testaments? Why do I keep returning to them and why do I have the feeling that the more I know the more complications I notice?

Since the publication of Hort's Introduction to the Westcott–Hort Greek Testament, the biblical text of Chrysostom has been recognized as a crucial point in the history of the New Testament text. Hort had noted that ‘a glance at any tolerably complete apparatus criticus of the Acts or Pauline Epistles reveals the striking fact that an overwhelming proportion of the variants common to the great mass of cursive and late uncial Greek MSS are identical with the readings followed by Chrysostom (ob. 407) in the composition of his Homilies’.1 Furthermore, the lack of this predominantly ‘Syrian’ element in the texts of the Fathers before Chrysostom, and more especially before Nicea, was a crucial step in his own theory of the history of the text.2

Bien avant de poser un problème littéraire aux exégètes modernes, la pluralité et la diversité des évangiles ont préoccupé les anciens chrétiens: il y a en effet des difficultés théologiques évidentes à reconnaître comme normatifs plusieurs témoignages divergents sur une révélation unique.1

The interpretation of the parable of the Sower, Mark 4. 14–20, is frequently said to be inconsistent since it seems to identify the seed which is sown both with the word and with people.1 When this inconsistency is excused it is usually in light of the lack of concern for logical consistency which characterizes Semitic parables.2 A similar shift in usage occurs in Col. 1. 6, 10 where the metaphor of ‘bearing fruit and growing’ is applied first to the gospel and then to believers.3 The similarity of this passage and Mark 4. 14–20 in terminology, shift in metaphorical usage, and focus on proper reception of the word (Col. 1. 5 ff.) may indicate that before the writing of the gospels Paul was already familiar with the parable of the Sower and its interpretation. IV Ezra also pictures as seed both men sown by God (8. 41) and God's word (9. 31).